Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Widow takes on mission to raise awareness about suicide
BOCA RATON – Kim Schley says she loved her husband with all her heart.
He was kind and honest and he loved her, she says.
They were supposed to grow old together, travel to the Greek Isles, live out their dreams.
But on May 17, Jason Scott Schley took his own life.
“When he passed, I felt like I never wanted anyone to feel what I felt,” said his grief-stricken widow, a Fort Lauderdale native who later moved to Boca Raton.
Kim Schley, 43, says she wants to do whatever she can to lower the number of suicides.
On Sunday, on what would have been her first wedding anniversary, she stood near a busy intersection in Boca Raton for 129 minutes — one for each of the 129 suicides that happen every day in the U.S.
She chose that spot, at the corner of Glades Road and Dixie Highway, because it’s near the auto shop her husband once owned.
He tried to kill himself there three years ago, so last March the couple moved to a
Tampa suburb on the west coast for a fresh start. It didn’t work, she says. Her husband was dead by May, six weeks before his 44th birthday.
“His choice to kill himself was a permanent solution to a temporary problem,” she said before the start of her vigil at noon. “I get mad at him, but I can’t stay mad because I know he was mentally ill.”
Suicide rates are on the rise, increasing by more than 25 percent since 1999, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Families and friends are left to pick up the pieces, haunted by one question: Why?
“I would never wish anyone to go through this horrible pain,” Kim Schley said.
She did not stand alone on Sunday.
Wilton Manors resident Alexia Houchins, whose husband died from suicide in 2016, joined the vigil.
“This path is really hard,” Houchins said. “It’s one of the toughest things you’ll ever go through in life, losing a partner to suicide. You need a lot of friends and help to get through those dark times.”
The women stood on separate corners holding up handmade posters.
“The world is much better with you in it,” read one. “Your story is not over,” said a second.
Another gave out a suicide prevent hotline, 800-273-8255. A fourth listed a number to text — 741741 — for people too upset to speak.
Drivers passing by waved, honked and gave them a thumbs-up.
“Suicide is so taboo, so not spoken about,” Kim Schley said. “If standing out here holding these signs can help one person, then I’ve done something. No one should have to endure this hell of losing someone to suicide.”
The pain of that day still sweeps over her like a tidal wave, she says.
She plans to hold a similar suicide awareness vigil near Tampa on July 3, Jason’s birthday.